


To Find a Place Where I Belong

by AboveWeird



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Flashbacks, Lots of influences apparently cause the author is Marvel trash, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Red Room, Some influence from Agent Carter, You probably won't know it if you haven't seen the movie, but I thought I'd mention it, genderbent Stucky, influence from the Black Widow book, memory recovery, refering to Natasha as Natalia, some comic influence, very brief Civil War spoiler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7116718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AboveWeird/pseuds/AboveWeird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Home. It was a word she hadn’t used in so long. She was afraid she didn’t know the meaning anymore... Maybe Stevie hadn’t given up on her yet. Maybe Jamie would finally let her find her... </em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Maybe home didn’t have to be a place.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fix What's Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration struck me and I had to write this. I'll try to keep this updated pretty consistently, but I'm going to go ahead and warn that I literally have no free time in July. I apologize in advance, but I will try to get another chapter or two up before then. I already have stuff in the works for that, so *crosses fingers*
> 
> Betaed by my best friend who you can find on Tumblr as raise-a-little-havoc and read over endless times by me. Let me know if we missed anything ^.^
> 
> Fic title and chapter title from "I Am Machine" by Three Days Grace

Jamie Buchanan Barnes.

She stared at the words on the display in front of her, taking them in. They felt… right, but not perfect. She knew it was her name, she felt sure of that. Besides, the picture right above it was her, even if she had changed so very much since then. But something still wasn’t… The woman she fought had called her Bucky. The woman… She flicked her eyes to another display. Stevie. That was the woman’s name. An odd name, but it came with a warm, happy feeling.

She remembered that they called her Bucky back then, too. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out why, though she knew it came from her middle name. She thinks maybe it was supposed to be a joke, because Buchanan was such an odd name for a girl to have. She remembered she hated it, always getting on to anyone who called her that. They kept doing it though. They said it was cute or funny when she got angry and the boys back then loved to tease her about it. She remembered that Stevie only called her that when they were play fighting, only to get on her nerves. Stevie was good like that, had a kind heart. Most of the time, of course. She didn’t know when the nickname started, who started it, or even how or why. She didn’t think that had anything to do with what happened to her though. She thought even 70 years ago she couldn’t recall. But she did recall the moment she stopped fighting the name.

She was young, God, so young. She was in her early teens and it seemed like several lifetimes ago. A boy had asked her out to a date. He was sweet, and he had chocolate brown eyes with flecks of hazel that showed in the right light. His name… She couldn’t remember his name, but she remembered the flecks of hazel in his eyes. 

They just went to a diner, nothing fancy. No one had the money for fancy and besides, she had liked it better that way. He called her Jamie. She liked that about him. Now that she thought… what else had she liked about him? She couldn’t remember. 

They were chatting lightly, flirting. Jamie had been good at flirting. A group of kids walked by, kids she knew. They let out a chorus of “Hey Bucky!” One harmlessly teased, “Aw, look at Bucky all grown up and on a date!” They walked away laughing happily, Jamie smiling and waving after them. But when she turned back to to the boy, he was frowning.

“What?” Jamie had asked.

“Why do you let them call you that?” He had actually sounded upset, like her nickname was a curse word.

“Bucky?” She shrugged. “It’s my nickname, I figure I don’t really have much say in it. Besides, they know I won’t snap at ‘em here, not while I’m on a date. Why, ‘s it bother you?”

He let out an exasperated breath. “It’s just not right, a girl goin’ by a name like that. It sounds like a boy’s name.”

She shrugged again and asked, “So?”

“ _So?_ ” He looked almost scandalized. He actually looked goddamn shocked that she didn’t care that people called her what he thought of as a “boy’s name.” It was a weird name, sure, but she’d never heard of a boy named Bucky. Now that she thought about it though, she guessed it really did sound kind of boyish.

“Yeah, so? It’s just a name, I don’t see why it matters. If you got a problem with it,” oh God, Stevie was starting to rub off on her, “then you ain’t gotta call me that.” He had started shaking his head at that point. 

“No, it’s not just that, how can it not _bother_ you?” Their food had been abandoned. Jamie just didn’t understand the issue. No one had taken offense to her nickname before.

“I don’t get why it would,” She was starting to feel defensive at this point. “Like I said, it’s just a name.”

“But you’re a girl. People should call you by a girl’s name, Jamie. It just ain’t right for you to go by a boy name.” And just like that, it was a lot less charming that he didn’t call her Bucky like everybody else.

“And what _else_ is right for girls?” She knew she was probably overreacting, that that wasn’t what this was about, but she couldn’t help but think about Stevie and how she would react to this idiot. She couldn’t stop herself. The guy was taken aback and Jamie knew she wouldn’t like his answer as he tilted his chin up, puffed out his chest, and relaxed back against the seat like he owned the place, so she went on before he could respond. “Get married to a boy, stay at home, have a few kids, _leave all the real jobs for men_?”

“Why of course!” He actually looked like he was going to start laughing. “What else would you do? You’re a girl, that’s what you’re _supposed_ to do. You got the vote, ain’t that good enough?”

“It’s not _good enough_. What if I don’t _want_ to stay at home, what if I _want_ to get a job, go to school, what if I want to decide what I do for myself?” She was raising her voice and people were looking at her like she was crazy. The waitresses looked either panicked or proud and every man or boy in the place was either amused, annoyed, or confused. She couldn’t bring herself to care about any of that. She spent too much time with Stevie, spent too much time listening to her best friend rant on about the injustices to women and people of color and anyone who wasn’t a healthy, white male interested in girls to not get worked up here. This kind of thing was rarely directed at her, and it always sent her into a rage. Stevie would be proud. 

The boy took a moment before standing up. “Then I don’t think you’re the girl for me, _Jamie_ , and you should think about what boy will ever want you with a mind and a mouth like that.” And then he turned and walked away, leaving enough money on the table to pay for their little meal. Like he was still a gentleman, like he was being chivalrous as he was walking all over her. It was infuriating. 

She pulled herself out of the seat, ignoring the people who hadn’t gone back to minding their own business yet, and she walked out with her head held high and her steps confident. As soon as she was out of the diner, though, she ran the rest of the way back to Stevie, climbed into her window from the fire escape like she normally did after a long day or just because. She was relieved to see a blonde head sticking up out of a bundle of blankets. Jamie knocked twice on the windowsill, and Stevie turned around from where she had apparently been drawing hunched up on the corner of her bed. Her smile faded just a bit as she took in the look on her friend’s face.

“Jamie… what happened?” She set down her sketchbook and moved to the end of the bed, closer to the window. “Your date go that bad?” Jamie didn’t answer until she was settled next to Stevie, cuddled under the excess of her blankets. 

“He was just a jerk, Stevie,” She sounded dejected even to her own ears and she hated it. “And not the good kind like you are, I mean he was actually kind of an asshole.” Stevie huffed at that.

“What happened?” So Jamie told her, recited the event almost perfectly. She had gotten used to telling Stevie stories exactly as they happened because she did it so often. Stevie looked predictably enraged once the story was over. “I should have been there, would have given that ass a piece of my mind. Entitled idiot…”

Jamie sighed more than a little fondly. “I honestly don’t think he could have handled one of your rants, Stevie. Besides, it’s how he was raised. Ain’t nothin’ to be done.” Stevie just huffed in an annoyed way and fell backwards onto her bed. Jamie followed on account of being wrapped in the same blanket. 

After a while of sitting in silence, a thought came to Jamie. “Hey Stevie?” Her friend made a little noise to indicate she had heard. Jamie was almost positive she was still thinking about what’s-his-face with the hazel in his chocolate brown eyes. “After all that happened, I think I like my nickname a little more.” When she let her head fall to the side, Stevie was looking back at her a little confused. “Bucky. I kind of like it. So what if it’s supposedly a boy’s name? I like it.”

Stevie tilted her head up so her mouth was free from the blanket. “You just like being different, don’t you?” Jamie laughed at that. Yeah, she supposed she did. 

From then on, she stopped correcting people for using the nickname and Stevie started using it all the time.

Now she didn’t know which name to use, which one fit. Was she Jamie or Bucky? Could she even use the name Bucky, after all she’d done? She decided to stick with Jamie. If anyone was going to call her Bucky, it would be Stevie, and Stevie alone. 

Jamie lost track of how long she stayed in the museum, reading through that one exhibit. She didn’t remember the Howling Commandos, but she knew enough to feel bad about that, to want to remember. She felt the impulse to smile at their figures and stories, something she hadn’t felt in as long as she could remember.

She let herself get lost in her thoughts and fractured memories, if they could be called that. She wasn’t really sure what was real and what she was making up, but she held onto the memories of Stevie. She was the one who broke her from Hydra’s control. She was the one who broke her from Hydra’s hold, twice from what the museum says. She remembered the surprise from that familiar voice being completely eclipsed by the surprise of the unfamiliar body. She remembered, “No, not without you!” and the panic rising in her chest with all the things she noticed in Stevie’s new body that weren’t actually unfamiliar at all, and she realized that it was real, that it was actually happening, and she couldn’t lose Stevie, she couldn’t and she wouldn’t and she was so sure it was going to happen before her eyes until she pulled this big blonde punk onto the rigging beside her.

She remembered a tiny little girl being bullied by the boys on their block. She remembered them pulling blonde pigtails and the little scared but determined face that stared up at them. Jamie had walked over, told those boys off, and re-braided pigtails for the tiny girl who introduced herself as Stevie.

She remembered years later they thought they were all grown up and ready for the world even though they were far from it. She remembered little Stevie with her hair always in a ponytail to keep out of her way, and she remembered how Stevie was little in a time when little was exactly what boys wanted. How they went on double dates which would have gone wonderfully if Stevie weren’t so progressive for her time or if boys didn’t all want a girl to stay at home and have kids and not do much more than that. She remembered days and nights spent huddled into bed because Stevie was so sick and she remembered how frail she always seemed, even as Jamie tried her hardest not to treat her that way. She remembered her ignoring that frailty and jumping in to protect so many people from guys twice her size or more, only avoiding a physical fight because she was a girl and some guys still didn’t feel right about hitting girls. Sometimes she wasn’t so lucky, but Jamie was always the one to patch her up and talk her down. She remembered both of them applying for the war even though the military didn’t want a little girl like Stevie or any girl at all to be honest. And she remembered her shock and guilt and that little bit of regret at getting in because of an open minded official, but that’s where she stopped. 

She wanted to think about Stevie. The good parts, not what happened after. Not the deaths and the sorrows and the torture. Not loosing her parents and Stevie losing hers, but those thoughts sucked her in too, and suddenly it was too much all at once and she felt her breathing accelerate before she heard a voice break into her mind.

“Excuse me, miss?” She turned to see an old man in a janitor’s uniform. “You’re gonna have to leave now, we’re closing up for the night.” She apologized and left with the feeling that she knew that man somehow, and that he knew her. Something in that smile and those glasses seemed familiar, but she had done enough remembering. It was time to go elsewhere. Time to figure out her next step after Hydra.

______________________

Turns out her next step was to squat in an abandoned apartment building in a pretty shitty part of town and make friends with the local cats. She stayed there for several weeks before she really figured out what she needed to do. She wanted to see Stevie, but she didn’t want her to see her like this. She needed to clear her head after everything Hydra had done to her for… 70 years. She thought she was right to need some time after that. Plus, she knew Stevie would be under protection. She was Captain America, after all, and America had just gotten her back. After an attack like DC, they weren’t going to let just anyone near her. Jamie thought about how much Stevie would hate that for a while before she caught herself and refocused on her plan. 

She couldn’t stay in DC, they would be looking for her. She probably couldn’t even stay in the United States, that much she figured out quickly. She knew her handlers had gotten her into the country somehow, but without them she would have to find her own way. Without anyone catching her. After a major branch of government had just been completely upended from the inside and everybody was paranoid. Perfect. 

So no planes then. That would be one of the first things they increased security on to catch any runaways. Jamie had no problem with that, she didn’t want to be that trapped for that long. 

She could go to Mexico or a South American country, but those borders were hard to cross these days. Canada was too close. If they expanded the search that far north, she would just have another problem on her hands. Europe was good because Europe was far away and there were plenty tiny countries to hide in, that wouldn’t pose an issue. It would be easy to disappear for a while. 

The government would be looking for her, but she was more concerned about Stevie. She’d drive herself into the ground to find Jamie. She just hoped that the man with the metal wings was close enough with her to keep her grounded. Maybe Natalia could help too, Jamie remembered seeing her… Natalia. Why does Jamie know that name? What is the redheaded woman to her? Jamie lost days chasing that line of thought. 

Eventually the issue became finding a boat going to Europe that she could sneak onto. The hardest part was finding the right destination, the rest was easy. She waited for one to come along, said goodbye to her cats, and got onto the earliest boat bound for Norway.

______________________

Once she made it to Norway, she flitted through country after country, remembering and forgetting. Occasionally she ended up somewhere she knew she had been before, as the Soldier. Those times, she got herself somewhere abandoned and cried herself to sleep. Or she found herself staring at a wall or the ceiling unblinkingly for lord knows how long. Those were not good days. Most days weren’t good days. 

Most days she couldn’t look her reflection in the eye, so she avoided mirrors. That wasn’t too hard, seeing as she was a permanent squatter. She moved from town to town, country to country, but the rooms and buildings she chose all looked similar: bare, empty. She had gotten her hands on a sleeping bag and basic supplies along the way, picked up odd jobs here and there as long as she could keep on a jacket and gloves. Her metabolism was maybe too fast for how little she ate, but that didn’t matter much. She wasn’t an assassin anymore. She wasn’t really anything anymore, it felt like. It didn’t matter to anyone if she kept herself in top shape, and it was probably better if she didn’t, actually. What little exercise she did was to support the arm Hydra had given her. It was heavy and took a lot of support from a lot of muscles, or else it caused a lot more pain. That hadn’t been a problem when she was the Soldier.

She kept remembering and she kept moving. The Howling Commandos came back to her, and she was more than grateful to have those memories. The most diverse group in WWII, and they were all idiots. She missed them. Memories seemed to come back easiest from her early years and the tail end of Hydra’s hold on her. The feeling of choking the life out of a target came back alongside the day her mom came home with her newborn sister, Becca. Cold-hearted bloodshed popped up with lazy summer days with a skinny girl with blonde hair. Most of the middle of her life was just missing. It was a lot. Jamie was glad she wasn’t with Stevie with all of it going on. It was like bursting at the seams at the same time she was caving in on herself. She needed to be alone for it.

Sometimes memories were triggered by tiny things, even things she didn’t identify until after the fact or not at all. It could be a song or a word or a glint of light off a shiny surface. Sometimes it was a big thing like a place or event or a familiar-looking face. It was impossible to predict and not all the memories were welcome. Not everything came back because a lifetime of memories takes a lifetime to remember. But Jamie was finding herself. Or at least she was trying to.

When she wasn’t remembering she was trying to be out in the world. She tried to figure out what had happened in the time she had missed and how much of it was somehow connected to her. She’s pretty sure a few high class assassinations or disappearances were her doing. She’s also pretty sure that the social issues that people were still facing were exactly what her and Stevie had been fighting in the 30s and early 40s. That was… disappointing, to say the least. The world thought itself so advanced when it was really just the same as ever. Apparently they won WWII, which was good. A lot of people attributed a good portion of that victory to the Howling Commandos, to Captain America and Bucky. Jamie thought it was mostly Stevie who deserved the praise. She always thought that.

She didn’t really know how long she stayed in Europe, hopping from country to country and letting her returning memories break her apart so she could try to put herself back together again. Long enough to feel so much guilt over all she had done and to try to accept that she had been brainwashed and couldn’t be held accountable several times. She never really believed that. As much as she blamed herself, though, she blamed Hydra even more. They had turned her into whatever she was, the Soldier. They had used her in the most literal way and put her through things that no person should ever have to endure. And they used her to create more like her. Eventually she started using that to guide her travels. Where there was reported Hydra activity, she followed with guns and explosions. She thought maybe she was becoming feared again, but it was for a different reason.

She also thought that was exactly how Stevie knew where to look for her. Luckily it was a good day when she noticed this, so she was prepared to react. She felt someone watching her. At first she thought it was Hydra, but she saw a flash of light off metal from a rooftop and looked up to see the man she ripped a wing off back in DC. She knew he’d be with Stevie. She played it cool, pretended she hadn’t noticed until she was just out of his sight and then she took off. She didn’t know if Stevie had been there or seen her, but she knew she was looking. That was enough. The problem was that Jamie didn’t want to be found. Not yet. 

From then on she was much more careful. She stayed hidden and out of open areas. She took more care to blend into crowds and always looked for flashes of metal or blonde hair. They ran into each other several more times while Jamie was in Europe. At a certain point, she realized she wasn’t the only one taking down Hydra bases, which meant that Stevie and her winged friend were doing it too. She was glad for that, but it also irritated her that Stevie put herself in that much danger, taking on Hydra bases with a two person team. Maybe the idiot had other teammates--maybe Natalia was with them, whoever she was. She seemed important, but Jamie couldn’t figure out why. Memories of the redheaded woman never came back. Jamie never saw anyone with Stevie but that one man, though.

Eventually she stopped seeing them altogether. She figured at that point they had either given up or, if they were close enough, the Falcon--that’s what the media had taken to calling him. Jamie figured it was better than it could be--had taken Stevie home. Either way, she hoped Stevie had gone back to the US before she drove herself crazy on this search. Next thing Jamie knew, the Avengers had dropped Sokovia on a bunch of civilians and she realized why she hadn’t seen metal and blonde hair following her around lately.

That’s when she decided it was time to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be up within the next week or so as long as nothing crazy happens.  
> Thanks for reading <3
> 
> xx-AboveWeird


	2. I Never Sleep (I Keep My Eyes Wide Open)

Home. It was a word she hadn’t used in so long. She was afraid she didn’t know the meaning anymore, and as she worked her way through Europe to a way back across the ocean, she became more sure of that. She had nowhere to stay, no safe houses to guarantee no one would find her in a country that was still on the look out. By now, the public may have moved on, but any government operative worth anything would know better. She would be more exposed than she had been since she fought Stevie in DC. She had no claim in the US, none but a friend she had tried to kill but who had come looking for her anyway. She didn’t even know where to find Stevie anymore. She _could_ find her of course, but it wouldn’t be as easy as before. She figured that was as good a start as she was going to get. Maybe Stevie hadn’t given up on her yet. Maybe Jamie would finally let her find her. 

Maybe home didn’t have to be a place.

...

She finally found Stevie in upstate New York. She seemed to be training a new set of Avengers with the help of Natalia. The Falcon was part of the new team, as was a man in armor that was definitely based off of Iron Man’s. Jamie thought she recognized it, but she couldn’t quite summon the code name. Iron something. The rest of the team consisted of a girl with magic powers--Jamie thought she had seen it all, she really had--and a man with red skin who preferred floating and passing through walls rather than walking. At least, Jamie thought he was technically a man. She supposed she couldn’t really judge. 

Regardless of the humanness of the new team, Jamie knew they were dangerous. Each and every one of them would attack her if they saw her and she didn’t know how many she could handle on her own, especially now. Natalia was to be avoided at all costs. Even though Jamie was curious about her, Natalia had seen her face and knew who she was. That made her more of a threat to Jamie’s mission. Plan? Jamie didn’t know what to call what she was doing. Stalking, technically, but she never did like technicalities.

Jamie watched from a distance as the new Avengers trained and worked together. Stevie pushed them hard, as ruthless as she was kind. Natalia was no different, though she showed her kindness much more sparingly. 

Jamie stayed well out of the range of Stark’s security system, watching Stevie and her team through windows and while they were out in the fields. The name on the tech tugged at her mind. She knew a Stark, not so different than the one who now owned this compound. If she recounted the years, it would make sense that the one she knew was this Stark’s father. Howard was his name. He had been a mostly good man, and Jamie had liked him. She remembered he was eclectic and spontaneous. He grated on many people’s nerves, but Jamie just figured that was the type of people she got on with best. His son seems to have followed in his technological footsteps, but Jamie always could outrun a camera and a few lazer triggers. 

After a while she began to learn the schedule of the people inside the compound. Luckily, they seemed to be free to leave as they wished, and Stevie would often take trips down to Brooklyn when she had a day off. Often times she went with Falcon or Natalia, but she had also taken to adding the girl in red to the trip. Jamie followed closely on those days, and she thought Stevie could tell she was being watched. She never mentioned it to who she was with, so she thought maybe Stevie also knew it was her. Or more likely, Natalia and the Falcon had noticed on their own as well. Either way, they never did anything about it. She also noticed that the floating man never left the compound.

Over a span of a few weeks, Jamie started connecting names to faces. The Falcon’s name was Sam. Stevie talked about and to him often. Natalia turned out to be Natasha, but Stevie called her Nat so much that Jamie figured it would be okay for her to as well, if only to avoid having to question why she thought the redhead’s name was Natalia. The Iron Man look-alike was Rhodey, also known as the Iron Patriot; the girl with magic powers was Wanda and she “may move things with my mind, Sam, but I will not yell out ‘Wingardium Leviosa’ every time;” and finally the floating man seemed to be called Vision. At first Jamie had thought it was a code name, but he was never referred to as anything else. Stevie seemed to have a home now, and if she didn’t spend so much time looking at the Winter Soldier file, Jamie would feel bad about potentially messing all that up.

The next time Stevie left for Brooklyn, she went alone. Jamie followed, staying out of Stevie’s line of sight and keeping her jacket on and her hood up. Luckily for her it was a cold day. With Stevie alone she had room to act, to allow her presence to be known without alerting others. She had to trust that Stevie wouldn’t just blow all of that out of the water by alerting everyone when she got back. 

Honestly, she didn’t have enough reliable memory back to let Stevie know she was back with some weird childhood special knock--did kids do that then? Do they still do that now?--or something like that, but she didn’t have to wait long for her chance to open up. Stevie was walking along a sidewalk when she stopped and turned to look down an alley. Jamie watched as several emotions flickered across her face before it settled into angry. She watched Stevie stalk down into the alley, probably to break up some damn fight like always. Jamie hurried after her, not intending to let that little punk get herself beat up again, but she stopped short when she rounded the corner. 

She had slipped back into the 30s in the moments it took her to get to the alley, but there was no mistaking where or when she was as she took in the scene. Two men and a woman surrounded Stevie, holding her at gun point. Stevie’s back was to her and the attackers were focused solely on Captain America. They had no clue they needed to be on the look out for her backup. Then again, neither did she. 

Stevie was talking to them, trying to assess the situation as she distracted them. They obviously didn’t know what they were dealing with if they left her conscious and thought they were safe. She may have been shieldless, but she was never helpless. Jamie didn’t need to do much, just get their attention away from where it was. That was easy enough. She picked up a chunk of cement and threw it at the far side of the closed off alley. 

The attackers all turned at the sound, startled, and that was all the opening Stevie needed. She disarmed the woman first because she was closest, ripping her gun out of her hand and knocking her unconscious with it. She rolled to avoid the men’s fire and quickly took them both down with a non-lethal, but very painful, shot each. Jamie heard Stevie asking who they worked for as she darted to the other side of the alley and into the next building. Stevie would call in back up soon and head back to the compound. She could only hope that she had gotten her first message across. _I’m here, Stevie. I’m almost ready for you to find me._

______________________

Stevie never went to Brooklyn alone again, but she did start taking walks outside of the compound and into the surrounding woods. The first time she did, it caught Jamie so off guard she was left scrambling to cover her tracks and any evidence of her being there. She watched Stevie from the trees, making sure she was almost completely hidden by branches and entirely too glad to have had stealth training to keep her silent. Being so near to her friend again sent a shock through her, and not all of it was good. She had tried to kill Stevie, had almost succeeded, had almost not stopped herself. What was she expecting after all that, to be welcomed back with open arms? But God, the worst part is that she knew that was exactly what Stevie would do. It was excruciating. She didn’t deserve that. She shouldn’t even want it, yet here she was.

Stevie turned and looked up right at her hiding spot, and Jamie froze. Lost in her thoughts, she had cracked a neighboring branch with her left hand. She had given away her position.They locked eyes momentarily and Jamie thought for a second that Stevie was going to say something. Instead, she just turned back around and walked back to the compound after a few minutes.

Jamie didn’t really know what to do with herself after that. She almost left the compound altogether, maybe even the US again, but something held her back. She didn’t want to leave here, even if she was questioning the reasons she came here in the first place. Stevie was here and, well, if she were to be honest with herself, Jamie didn’t really know what she’d do with her life if it didn’t involve Stevie somehow. Maybe that was pathetic, but she figured she was allowed something pathetic in her life. Stevie was the only connection she had to her past, the only one she really cared about anymore.

After that, she was much more prepared for Stevie’s walks into the woods. She always came alone and came almost everyday. Jamie starting leaving things for her to find. Footprints that were left uncovered, a scratch in a tree made by her metal arm, food wrappers that Stevie picked up. Stevie always kind of looked upwards in an almost fond disappointment at the last one, and Jamie had to fight back a smile. 

Once she left her sleeping bag out. She thinks that actually upset Stevie a bit and it took Jamie a while to figure out why. She wouldn’t like the idea of Stevie sleeping alone out in the woods when Jamie was nearby in a house, either. 

In the end, it wasn’t Stevie that found her. It was Natalia. 

...

She supposes she should have seen it coming--she certainly should have _heard_ it coming. So long out of practice with her guard down because she didn’t feel directly threatened had weakened her senses. She was so focused on Stevie that she allowed herself to be distracted from her surroundings. She didn’t hear the approach of another person until the bushes rustled as they parted way for a body to burst through and pounce in Jamie’s direction.

Initially, she reacted as she was trained, slipping into attack mode until she caught a glimpse of red hair. _Natalia_. She did not want to hurt Natalia and certainly did not want to kill her, so she dropped her counter attacks to purely defensive. Natalia was a friend of Stevie’s. She had worked to protect her from the Winter Soldier--from Jamie. It quickly became obvious that Natalia also had no intention of killing Jamie, though she was much less kind.

“What are you doing here?” Natalia spoke with suspicion and steel in her voice. 

“I just wanted to-” Natalia aimed a kick at Jamie’s head, but Jamie ducked out of the way and rolled to the side. “To see her.”

That seemed to give Natalia pause, as she allowed a longer gap between her last attack and the next than she should, more than she was trained to, Jamie knew. “Why?”

“She’s my… She’s my friend.” Jamie wasn’t actually sure about that, but if Stevie came looking for her, surely that meant she felt the same. She narrowly avoided Natalia’s next attack as she thought. “I remember.”

“You remember?” Natalia seemed a little shocked. Understandably so, as HYDRA brainwashing isn’t something to be taken lightly. She suspected Natalia had some experience.

“Not everything. Not everyone. But enough, for now.” She hoped maybe Natalia would see her sincerity and back off, but instead she walked closer.

“Then I’m sorry for this,” Natalia said just as she aimed a carefully calculated punch at Jamie’s head. She didn’t try to dodge this time and, despite decades of training screaming in her brain in protest, she allowed herself to black out at Natalia’s feet.

______________________

When Jamie regained consciousness, it was with the sound of a male and female voice arguing in her ears. She thought she caught the words “Shield” and “Hydra” mentioned, but she paid them no mind. The voices were somehow familiar and she didn’t feel threatened. She wasn’t strapped down, the surface beneath her was soft, and she was almost positive there was a blanket thrown over her. Wherever she was and whoever she was with, they wouldn’t bother with blankets if they were just going to kill her.

She tried to remember what happened while the other people in the room were occupied with matters other than her. She had been in the woods when Natalia attacked her. They had spoken very briefly and she allowed Natalia to knock her out… That must mean she’s inside the compound. Jamie tensed at that. If she was in the compound, it was only a matter of time before Stevie was made aware. In fact, odds are that she already knew. Knowing Stevie, she was probably there already, fretting and worrying, but if that’s so, why couldn’t Jamie hear her?

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Jamie’s eyes snapped open as Stevie spoke, almost like Jamie’s thoughts had summoned her voice. Before the other two occupants of the room could respond to Stevie’s question, she was over at Jamie’s side.

“Bucky? Do you know where you are?” Honestly, Jamie barely heard the question through the sheer disorientation of having Stevie suddenly so close to her. She had been shadowing her for what felt like ages. Jamie had clung to thoughts of her best friend like a drowning person to a raft as she went through her time in Europe. After all that… Well, Stevie had started to seem a little unattainable. Jamie thinks that maybe she had never really thought she’d get to Stevie for real and waking up with her face so close to hers, her blonde hair framing her face from where she had apparently taken it down, it made everything feel a bit dream-like. 

Some habits, though, die hard.

“Stevie…” Jamie mumbled. “Your breath stinks.” Stevie let out a surprised huff at that and turned to the others.

“Yeah, she’s fine.” A tension Jamie hadn’t noticed lifted from the room as the two other people moved towards her. As they came into view, she saw that it was Sam and Nat. It made sense, considering they were the closest two to Stevie and probably some of the more important people in the building. “Natasha knocked you out and brought you in here,” Stevie informed, “I’m sorry about that, Buck.”

Jamie shook her head. “No, it’s fine. Didn’t really fight back much. She didn’t hit harder than she needed to.” Though, implying that Natalia-- _Natasha, why was that so hard to remember_ \--actually had to knock her out was perhaps a bit of a stretch. Jamie would have come in willingly, but she also would have done the same thing were she in Natasha’s shoes. Jamie moved to sit up, but Stevie’s hand on her shoulder kept her on the bed.

“You probably don’t want to do that,” she cautioned. “Sam gave you a sedative, and it’s still wearing off.” Right. That would probably explain why she hadn’t kicked into assassin mode as soon as she woke up. That also meant that it was something Hydra hadn’t made her immune to. Jamie didn’t know whether to be grateful about that or not. She was still kind of fuzzy headed.

“Stevie, we still have to figure out what to do with her,” Sam’s voice cut through a bit of the haze. “Both Hydra and Shield are looking for her, she’s a wanted criminal, you do know that, right?”

“And what, you just want me to turn over my best friend for crimes she had no choice in committing? You read the file, Sam, you know what they did to her!” Stevie leaned towards Sam, which meant she also leaned over Jamie and made the whole situation feel even more protective than her tone of voice. 

“No, God, I just…” Sam took a big breath and ran his hand over his head. “You know I’m with you in this, man, I just want you to know what you’re up against. This won’t be easy if Shield decides they want her.”

“They decided that when the Winter Soldier attacked Captain America,” Nat pointed out. Jamie shivered at the use of her old alias. “What we don’t know is how they want to handle her when they get her.”

“Well, they aren’t getting her, so it doesn’t matter,” Stevie growled.

“Look,” Jamie interjected, pushing herself into a sitting position. “Honestly, after Hydra, I don’t really trust any big organization. And, not to be insensitive or anything, but didn’t Hydra and Shield just gut each other not too long ago? I mean, didn’t I…” She took in a shaky breath and continued quieter, “I was ordered to kill the director…”

“He’s alive,” Stevie reassured.

“ _Stevie_ ,” Nat hissed in warning.

“No, Nat, she should know,” Stevie put a hand on Jamie’s shoulder and moved in to look her in the eye. “He was hurt, really badly hurt, but he made it. He had us all fooled, made everyone think he was dead, but he’s not. Bucky, he’s alive. You didn’t kill him.” Jamie exhaled and nodded. Stevie stayed where she was for a second before moving back. Her hand remained in place. 

She then steeled her voice and told the room at large, “Bucky is staying here in the compound. I don’t want the others to know, not yet. Not until all _four_ of us agree it’s time.”

Sam looked unsure, but he nodded anyway. 

“Stevie, they have a right to know she’s in the building,” Nat said. “She did try to kill you, all three of us,” She gestured at Sam, Stevie, and herself. “It’ll take a little more than this to prove she’s still _Bucky_ and they have a right to know they might be in danger.” Jamie held back a cringe at someone other than Stevie calling her Bucky. It still didn’t feel right yet.

“She’s right,” Jamie agreed. “They should know.” Stevie, Sam, and Nat all looked at her in surprise. “I don’t… They used trigger words, Stevie, I don’t know what might trigger me, make me… I don’t know what might turn me back into the Soldier.”

Stevie looked pained at that, but she shook her head. Her voice was soft as she addressed only Jamie, “Not yet, okay? We’ll tell them, just… Not yet. I don’t know how they’re gonna take it.” She looked back up to Nat and Sam to make sure that her point had gotten across. Out of the corner of her eye, Jamie saw them nod, but she was still looking at Stevie. She had expected open arms, but this… Stevie didn’t blame her for _anything_. It was almost too much. Jame didn’t deserve it after all she’d done, but she wanted it. And he was fiercely grateful to have it. 

“She probably needs to rest for a bit now,” Sam announced, suddenly very official sounding. “Tranq-naps are about the worst naps and she’s had a long… well. Rest will do her good, and then she needs to eat something.” He looked over Jamie, no doubt taking in the bags under her eyes and the messy braid she kept her hair in, the way her cheeks must be sunken in from her days in Europe and the woods outside, her dirty clothes she picked up God knows where and God knows when, and the fatigue that was obviously from more than just the sedative. “Preferably a lot of something, and I’ll find you some clothes.” He paused. “Welcome back, Sergeant Barnes.” He loosely saluted her. 

Jamie huffed in surprise, but she saluted Sam as he walked out of the room. Nat followed him out, stopping at the door to turn around and say, “Sorry about your head, but I had to pay you back somehow,” before she closed the door.

Stevie hovered by the bed for a second, messing with her hair in a nervous habit. It was probably what caused her to take it down from her signature ponytail. “Do you need anything, Buck? I can get you some water, or…?”

Jamie just shook her head. “Just tired, Stevie. It’s been a long day.” Stevie nodded and turned to leave, but Jamie caught her arm. She looked back in question. “Could you, um… Could you stay? If you’re not too busy?”

Stevie smiled at her, bright but soft. “I just got you back, Buck. Of course I’ll stay.” She pulled a seat up next to the bed and Jamie laid back down and closed her eyes, not really expecting to fall asleep. She did though, feeling warmer and safer than she had in a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, betaed by raise-a-little-havoc and read over by me lots of times.
> 
> Chapter title once again from "I Am Machine" by Three Days Grace, this time for a bit of irony.
> 
> Please, please, please let me know what you think and especially if you catch anything that we missed, like if I referred to Stevie as "Steve" be accident, I've been known to do that. Thanks for reading <3
> 
> xx- AboveWeird


	3. At Least You Feel Something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any thing written _[like this]_ is in Russian, but I don't know any of the language and Google translate is the devil. The only reason I didn't do that to the Red Room in Russian is because that is how it is referred to in the Black Widow book, Forever Red (which you should totally go read). So if anyone wants to help me out with some Russian translating or knows someone who can, I'd be forever grateful.

Jamie snapped her eyes open, already on full alert. Whatever drug Sam had given her, it had worn off and most of the sense of safety she felt earlier had melted away with it. She took in the room around her, something she had failed to do earlier. The walls were mostly bare. Very little furniture occupied the room, consisting only of a bed, a nightstand which held clothes that could only be meant for her, a table and chairs, and a bookshelf which seemed to be carelessly strewn with books that no one else wanted. There was a large window on the wall near the table, directly across from the door. Jamie didn’t remember ever looking through that window. She didn’t even recognize the section of woods outside. No one ever came to this part of the compound. 

At the side of her bed sat Stevie. She rested in a chair she had commandeered from the table and had a book resting in her lap. The title promised only extreme boredom, which must have gotten the best of her, as she was slumped in the chair, sleeping.

She had stayed, which was the last thing Jamie expected. She didn’t know how long she had been sleeping, but if it was long enough for Stevie to grab a book to occupy herself and then fall asleep, then it had been a good while. Surely Stevie had other things to do, things like training her new Avengers. Why would she choose to stay with Jaime? 

Slowly, Jamie sat up. The blanket she had over her slid off and she moved it carefully onto the bed as she stood up. She slipped around Stevie and out the door, grabbing the clothes on the way out. The compound was large enough that she had a very small chance of running into the others as long as she kept in the area where she had woken up. She wandered about the compound for a bit, noting doors and layouts in her head until she came to a bathroom. 

She washed her face and hands before changing into the clothes Sam had left for her. Then she tugged her hair out of the braid it had been in and attempted to brush through it quickly before roughly re-plaiting it. Finally allowing herself to look in the mirror, she took in the sight she was faced with. She didn’t look like the Bucky from the museum, all smiles and bravado and endless, perfect charm. Neither was she the Russian assassin known only as the Winter Soldier, proud and dangerous and imposing. She wasn’t welcoming and she no longer appeared as a weapon of destruction. Instead, Jamie noted, she looked… Small. Physically she was thinner than she should be and the black tank top and sweatpants Sam had chosen made her look domestic and almost harmless, but it was more than that. She seemed to take up less space. She would disappear in a crowded room right now and she knew it. 

A knock on the door pulled her out of her thoughts, and she looked over to find Natalia-- _Natasha_ \--standing in the doorway. 

“So I see our second sleeping beauty is finally awake,” Natasha mused. 

Jamie gave her a confused look. “Second?”

Natasha hums in response. “Stevie’s the first.”

It took Jamie a little bit to remember why that made sense. She had of course gotten a mission file on Stevie and the museum she visited said plenty, and of course she read what she could about her old friend and how they both ended up in the wrong time period. She knew what happened to Stevie and how she sacrificed herself to end up here. She knew how long Stevie spent frozen solid in a cryofreeze made by nature. “The ice…”

“Your hair’s a mess,” Natasha said suddenly. “Did you even try to brush it?” 

“It’s… I ran a comb through it.” The change in topic caught Jamie off guard. Natasha just tisked and moved fully into the room.

“Do you mind if I fix it for you?” Jamie made a noise and gesture which Natasha seemed to take as permission to do as she liked, pulling the braid out of Jamie’s hair quickly. She pulled a brush out of a drawer and got to work attacking the tangles of Jamie’s hair. “You might have to wash it when I’m done, Jamie.” Jamie nodded, noting the use of her birth name instead of her nickname. 

She kept her eyes on Natasha in the mirror as she worked on her hair in silence. After a few minutes of brushing, Natasha quietly picked up the conversation she had broken off so suddenly. “How much do you know about Stevie’s time in the ice?”

Jamie thought back to what she had read. “I know it kept her alive,” She stated. “I know how long she was down and why she did it. Not long after I…” She trailed off, but they both knew what she was referring to.

Natasha nodded. “Yes, the country thinks of her as an unselfish hero. And she is, but I think it was something else as well.” 

“What do you mean?” Natasha pulled at a particularly stubborn tangle.

“I mean she just watched the person she loved most disappear into snow and then not long after she put a plane into the ice.” Jamie couldn’t deal with that right now, she couldn’t handle the thought of Stevie putting the plane down because of her. So she focused on the only other part of that sentence that she could.

“I wasn’t…” Jamie swallowed. “Stevie had Peggy.”

Natasha stopped brushing and met Jamie’s eyes in the mirror. “She’s known you almost your whole life and you think she loved Peggy more than you?”

Jamie noticed that Natasha didn’t question Stevie’s involvement with another woman. Then again, she probably already heard it from Stevie herself. “That’s different.” Stevie loved Jamie, but she had been _in love_ with Peggy. She hadn’t had to spend much time with the two to see that, and she was ecstatic to see someone finally appreciate Stevie for what she was.

Natasha just hummed in response, not saying anything else on the topic and resuming her brushing. “You’ve recovered a lot of memory since DC.” By now the brush almost glided through Jamie’s hair, catching very rarely. 

“The Captain America exhibit helped at first. Then in Europe I started remembering and it just… started coming back. Bit by bit.” She hesitated before she added. “Not all of it is good. It hurt.”

“I know,” Natasha spoke softly and Jamie had no doubt that she knew exactly what it felt like. She turned around to face Natasha, who dropped the hand which held the brush and met her eyes across the short distance between them.

“Why do I keep thinking your name is Natalia?” Natasha drew in a quick breath. “It’s the one thing I can’t make sense of. I know you as that, but I don’t know why.”

“We were trained by the same people,” She answered slowly. “We were in the Red Room together.” 

The name tugged at Jamie’s mind. She knew those words. She knew she did but she still couldn’t pull together any memories. “The Red Room?”

Natasha nodded, visibly pausing before she intoned, “ _Krasnaya komnata_ ,” and the memories hit Jamie like none others had, forcing her to her knees. 

...

_Darkness. Pain. The Red Room trained young girls, but she was wiped of anything they deemed unimportant and trained privately. Improvements on hand to hand, constant firearm training. Ballet. Endless hours upon hours of a routine that gave the elegant dance a new, more sinister meaning. Handcuffs, every night, wherever it was she slept that night. On a bed, under the sink, next to the radiator. The students they deemed too weak, she used as target practice. She never missed. So much blood. Brainwashing, “What do you remember?” until the answer was nothing at all. The Graduation Ceremony, taking away any possibility for the family she had so wanted. English turned to Russian. And everything else turned cold. Ice cold, seeping into every corner of her mind and body. She wanted to fight it, but they told her to stay and she had no choice. She never had any choice._

_But then, decades later, red hair. A soft touch. A brush through her own brown hair. Long fingers deftly fixing the braid she had ruined. Warm lips. Whispers in the night, promising impossible things, “It’ll be okay.” Holding a shaking body after another Graduation Ceremony. The only oasis in a world of hatred and pain._ Natalia.

She remembered.

...

Jamie resurfaced from her memories to Natalia whispering senseless Russian in her ear. She took a moment to even her breathing before she realized that she had been crying into the other woman’s shoulder as she held her. 

" _[I'm sorry, I'm so sorry]_ ” Natalia was saying. Jamie shook her head.

“ _[It's okay, I'm okay]_ ,” She reassured. She sat upright and pulled back from Natalia. “Thank you, I… I’m sorry for, uh,” She gestured to where she had been crying on Natalia just a second ago. Natalia shook her head and smoothed back Jamie’s hair. 

“You don’t have to apologize to me for that. I know what it’s like, remember?” Jamie nodded shakily. “They bury the Red Room more than other memories. I’m sorry to have pulled it all out like that.”

“No, I’m--” Jamie searched for the right word, but there wasn’t one, not for this. “I’m glad you did.” She moved forward to touch her forehead to Natalia’s. “I’m glad it was you, Natalia, not someone else. But--” She didn’t really know how to go on.

“You’re a different person now,” Jamie smiled weakly. “And so am I. A lot has changed. All that’s left for us is to move on.”

Jamie nodded again. “And we have different directions to move.” She felt Natalia nod back before she reached up to peck Jamie on the forehead. 

“And I think your direction is going to wake up and look for you soon,” she wrinkled her nose. “But first you should shower.”

Jamie huffed out a laugh and couldn’t help but agree. She really needed a shower, especially after her memories and talk with Natalia. They both stood up and as Natalia turned to leave, Jamie called out, “Can I still call you Natalia?”

Natalia turned around and gave her a smile, or what qualified as one for a Red Room student, “Of course, Jamie.” Then she left, making sure to close the door on her way out. 

Jamie got to work on that shower, letting the rest of her newly recovered memories wash over her along with the water. She neatly braided her hair and redressed when she got out, then quietly walked back to the room she had woken up in. Stevie was there, still asleep, and it was then that part of what Natalia had said actually hit her. She had referred to Stevie as Jamie’s direction. Jamie would always come back to Stevie, that wasn’t even a question. If she were a compass, then Stevie would be her North. That had always been how it was; Stevie was her closest friend and she hoped they could regain that after everything. But the way Natalia had said it and the topic they were on… She had meant more than friendship. And she seemed to think it went both ways.

______________________

The next week or so consisted of Stevie, Sam, and Natalia constantly fusing over Jamie in their own ways. They never left her alone if they could avoid it, and Jamie couldn’t blame them.

Stevie hadn’t been happy to have to leave Jamie, but she had to get back to training the new Avengers. She made up for that by using every one of her few free moments to check up on Jamie. Often times she hovered like she wasn’t sure how to act any more, others she was completely at ease at Jamie’s side with a book. Jamie knew exactly how she felt. Their reunions had been less than ideal and after so long apart where so much happened, she no longer knew where they stood. She was most grateful that Stevie never asked any questions about their time apart. 

Sam came often times when neither Stevie nor Nat could, which usually meant the other two were busy training the newer recruits--specifically Wanda and Vision. He exuded a calming presence which Jamie had never felt from anyone else. She wasn’t sure how he did it, but she always felt remarkably at ease when he was around. He never pried or asked questions, though he made it clear beyond doubt that he was completely open to listen should Jamie want to talk. He was supportive without saying a word. Jamie thought this should be the most unnerving thing about him, though she found she didn’t have it in her to be unnerved. He always ensured that Jamie had been eating and generally taking care of herself.

Somehow this relationship had morphed into a teasing and banter-filled acquaintanceship which probably made them look as though they didn’t get along at all. She suspected it confused Nat and Stevie, but it made Sam’s company feel a lot less mother hen-ish.

When it was just her and Natalia, they alternated between sitting in silence doing their individual things and talking about anything and everything. One day Nat introduced Jamie to video games. It wasn’t that she didn’t know about them, but she had obviously never played any. She quickly found that she liked them and that Nat was very good at them. She also learned about Clint, who Natalia credited with saving her from her life at the KGB. Jamie owed him a thank you and maybe a warning. From what she heard, though, he didn’t need a warning. It sounded like he already knew what he had by befriending Nat. Natalia caught her up on most things she had missed that she hadn’t already found out about, but she also gave her a long list of popular culture to catch up on, telling her that it was the same one Stevie had. Her reasoning was that not only would it give her something to do with Stevie and keep her busy on her own, but also everyone else would be bugging her about catching up if she didn’t get a head start. She figured she might as well. Most of these conversations happened in Russian, much to Stevie and Sam’s annoyance.

They quickly fell into a sort of rhythm that sort of worked for all that it was irregular. Of course, that was all upended one day. And of course, it was none other than Tony Stark who ruined it. 

Jamie heard a car pull up to the compound and she was put immediately on alert. No one visited the compound, it wasn’t public knowledge and the people who needed to be there already were. She was also on the other side of the compound and shouldn’t be able to hear the car pull up, but it was obnoxiously loud. That, more than anything, brought her down from her initial wariness. Anyone meaning to attack the compound would have come up covertly, not announcing their presence to the entire state of New York. She quietly snuck out of her room and navigated her way close enough to the front entrance to see Stevie lead in someone who she recognized as Iron Man. She hovered in a mostly unused hallway where she was out of the way but could still hear. They were obviously continuing a conversation that had started outside.

“--can’t just come up to visit because I missed you?” Tony was asking.

“You could try to tell me that, Tony, but I wouldn’t believe you,” Stevie retorted. “Don’t you have that deal going on with your clean energy source or something? You should be focusing on that.”

“Aw, Cap!” Tony placed a hand over his heart in mock surprise. “You _do_ care!” At Stevie’s look, he continued on. “If you must know, Pepper thought I was putting myself into my work too much and sent me down here to ‘get away’ or something.”

“You always throw yourself into your work too much,” Stevie started slowly, turning to look carefully at the man beside her. “How bad did it get that she actually had to send you to us?”

Tony shrugged, directing his attention instead to the other occupants of the compound who were slowly making their way to the room. “Hey, it’s your new Avengers! How are you guys, I hope the Captain’s not drilling you into the ground.”

“Not sure it’s her you need to be worried about,” Rhodey replied, stepping forward to greet Tony with a hug. 

“It’s not my fault if you can’t handle basic drills,” Natalia shot back from the edge of the group that was forming. “What brings you here, Tony?”

“Why is everyone so worried about that, it’s pleasure not business, honestly. That’s all that matters.”

Jamie watched silently as they all interacted, shooting back banter and genuine happiness at being reunited. Eventually, everyone went back to whatever they were doing, leaving Natalia to entertain Tony, as he seemed to have been deemed another person they couldn’t leave to their own devices. 

“So, Natasha, what’s got Stevie in such a good mood?” Natalia fixed Tony with a cool look, so he elaborated. “Come on, last time I saw her, she was still moping around about her buddy, Barnes. She was almost _normal_ just then, so what’s up, give me the dirt.”

“You’ll have to ask her about that,” Nat responded. She walked off, leaving Tony to trail after her and whine.

“Natasha, I know you know! Don’t leave me in the dark here, Cap will never tell me anything!”

“Then it’s not your business, Tony,” was the only response Natalia had.

After that, Jamie quietly made her way back to the room she had begun to think of as hers. She figured someone would be coming to her soon to alert her to the arrival of another person. Of course, as she opened the door she realized that she had taken too long getting back. Stevie was already standing in her room and she turned as she heard the door open.

“So I take it you saw Tony come in, then?” Stevie asked with her hands on her hips. Jamie nodded.

“Yeah. Seems like a handful.” Stevie laughed at that and Jamie gave her a little smile in return.

“Something like that.” She ran a hand through her ponytail before continuing. “He doesn’t know you’re here. I’m gonna tell him because I trust Tony but…” She sighed. “I think it might be time to tell everyone else too.”

“You’re sure?” Nerves struck up in Jamie at that. There was no way to know how everyone would take the news of having been unknowingly living with an ex-assassin for weeks. Especially one as high profile as her. 

“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s time, we’ve hidden you long enough, and if we wait any longer we risk reaching a point where not telling them crosses the line of trust we need for the team.” 

Jamie nodded again. “When?” Stevie took in a big breath and paused.

“What about tonight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per usual, betaed by my best friend over at raise-a-little-havoc on Tumblr and read over by me. I'd like to apologize for taking so damn long to get this up, it was ridiculously hard to write for some reason and I spent over half a week in a place with practically no internet. I write on Google Drive. So yeah, I couldn't do shit. It sucked. Hopefully I'll get one more chapter in before things get hectic this month, but we'll see.  
> Title taken from the same damn song as before. I think I'm determined to make that the theme song now. Sorry.  
> Thank you sosososo much for reading and let me know what you think and if I missed anything. 
> 
> xx-AboveWeird


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